S. Stirling - The High King of Montival

“Mom?” he said uncertainly, in a wavering voice, as if the harsh gravel tones weren’t his . “Mom? I’m scared, Mom. Dad said I have to be brave when the Church men come, but I’m scared. Where are you?”

He patted himself, and then looked at his hands. An expression of horror crumpled his face then, and tears leaked down his cheeks. He stumbled forward, the empty sheath of his shete banging awkwardly against his leg, as if he’d forgotten how to walk with it. Forgotten how to walk with the body of a man of thirty-odd years, too.

“Lady?” he blurted out to Mathilda. “I feel funny, lady. You seen my mom, ma’am? She looks a little like you.”

Mathilda’s face was white, though she had looked steady on more than one battlefield; she took a pace backward, and he could tell she was fighting not to draw her own blade. She did cross herself.

Ignatius stepped forward and spoke in Rudi’s ear, quickly and quietly. “I think the Corwinite cult take their trainees very young, Your Majesty,” he said. “And I think this man has just lost all the years since they did. Pardon me.”

Then louder, with a kindly tone: “Your mother is not here, my son. What is your name?”

The Seeker stood erect; you could see the effort it took him.

“I’m Bobby,” he said, with a quaver in his voice. “Bobby Dalan, sir. Bobby Dalan from Scrabbledown Ranch. You get me back home and Mom and Dad will be real happy, sir.”

He wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand. It was a grown man’s hand, and a warrior’s, scarred and sinewy. That made the gesture shocking, and. . Rudi found himself blinking too.

“I will look after you until you can go home,” Ignatius said. His voice became a soothing murmur. “Here, my son, come and sit by the fire and be warm. Would you like to sleep? There’s a blanket you can use. You are sleepy, aren’t you …”

A silence deep enough to ring had fallen when the priest rose a few moments later; wonder on most faces, and horror among the troops of the Sword of the Prophet who’d followed the adept so long. Ignatius wore a quiet smile when he came back to them, and he crossed himself.

“God’s mercy is very great,” he said. “Great beyond our comprehension.”

Rudi’s mouth quirked. Ignatius wasn’t the sort of Christian cleric who was always shoving his piety in your face, but it was bone-deep.

“It’s the Sword of the Lady , Father,” he said.

The smile grew broader. “And the Lady of Sorrows is most merciful too,” he said, and chuckled at Rudi’s snort. “That is a thing to which I can personally bear witness.”

Then he grew entirely grave. “And so are you , Your Majesty. . which, since you are to be High King, is reassuring to know.”

“We’ve been in each other’s sporrans for years now,” Rudi said. “I’m not a man who enjoys killing and never was.”

Fighting, sometimes, yes, he admitted to himself. Because I do it well, and it’s necessary work, and it calls forth all you have in you of strength and heart and wit. But killing in itself, no. Though it’s part of living and also sometimes necessary, even killing in cold blood.

The warrior-priest shook his head. “I knew that you were not a man of blood, my King,” he said. “But you had very good personal reasons to hate the Corwinite magus, and excellent reasons of policy to kill him as well, and it lay within your rights in law. That you chose not to. . speaks well of how you will rule.”

Rudi looked around. Several of his companions were looking disappointed. . but they all nodded as he sheathed the Sword once more, and there was awe in their eyes.

“Major Graber,” Rudi said.

“Yes?” the officer replied, crossing his arms on his chest.

He had an outward calm; his men were younger, and looked rocked to their foundations. That was the disadvantage of a creed that preached inevitable victory: its doctrines tended to be silent on what to do if you lost. Particularly if the loss was not merely a matter of swords.

“There’s a village on this island,” Rudi went on, nodding to Ingolf to show where he’d gotten the tale of it. Some of them were refugees from the mainland from just after the Change who came with stock and seed and tools, and the rest were Indians from this place-from the same time as the forest, brought forward with it-who had their own knowledge to add to the mix.

“They’re fishers and gardeners and hunters of the whale; good-hearted folk, from what I hear. They have more women than men, and it could be they’d take in any of you who wished to stay here. The rest may return to the mainland with us, but closely watched and unarmed, and the journey westward will be perilous at best.”

The man nodded, a swift hard gesture. “I was tasked with assisting the High Seeker,” he said, in a voice that might have been forged from iron.

“The High Seeker no longer lives,” Rudi pointed out. “Now there’s only the boy who was murdered to make him.”

After a slight hesitation, Graber went on: “My family is in Corwin. My wives, my children.”

Rudi shrugged. “You tried to fulfill your mission; it’s for you to decide if you and your kin can await anything good from your rulers because of it. But you’ve time to think, all of you.”

When he turned back to his friends, Mathilda linked her fingers together and tapped her paired thumbs on her chin, a habit she’d picked up from him.

“Do you think you can trust this Graber?” she said softly.

Rudi shrugged. “Within reason. My judgment is that he’s a hard man, with little mercy and no yielding in him, but not without honor of a sort when left to make his own choices. There was a poet of the ancient Greeks. . he said something about a perfect man being hard to find …”

Father Ignatius nodded. “I think I know the one you mean,” he said. “Simonides of Keos.”

Then, quoting: “So I will never waste my lifespan in the vain unprofitable search for a blameless man. If you find him, send me word. But that one I will love and honor who does nothing base from free will. Against necessity, even gods do not fight. Undoubtedly he was among the virtuous pagans.”

Rudi nodded. “Like myself?” he said ironically.

Ignatius smiled slightly and tapped one booted foot on the ground; if the shoe fits. .

Rudi and Mathilda chuckled; the younger man went on: “Graber. . is as good a man as can be expected from his upbringing, and the time and place of it. Raised elsewhere, he’d have been a good man by our way of thinking as well. I’ll kill him if I must, but I’d rather not.”

He turned his head. The corsairs had moved a little farther away, as if to disassociate themselves still more from the surviving Cutters and whatever their fate would be. As he watched they spread their prayer mats and knelt on them, bowing eastward, where their Holy City lay.

Now, what shall I do with the lot of you? he thought. That’s less of a problem, for I did promise quarter to those of you captured in Kalksthorpe in return for sailing me here. As for the others. . well, in honor I can do nothing but extend the same terms to them. Yet you are pirates, and honor doesn’t require me to be an overtrusting fool. Mercy to the guilty can be cruelty to the innocent, as the saying goes.

Abdou al-Naari rose. The crews finished their prayers and stood as well, rolling up their mats. Rudi Mackenzie had been waiting quietly until they were done with the ritual; Abdou had to admit he was polite in such matters. The five daily prayers were God’s will unless something very urgent intervened, and besides that it was good to reestablish routine; it helped the men’s spirits.